Hockey serves for exercise, for excitement, and for enjoyment. Their chief use for exercise is in staying fit; for excitement, is in watching your team win; and for enjoyment, as in getting together with friends to celebrate victory. For anyone can play hockey, but few can play as well as the professionals. To play too much hockey is obsession; to get too excited by hockey is insanity; to enjoy it too much is impossible. Young people dream of playing hockey, middle-aged people watch and play hockey, and old people reminisce about hockey and the glory days of past teams and their fading stars. Some hockey games are captivating, others are barely tolerable, and a select few are spiritless and lackluster. That is, some hockey games are so mind-blowing that you drink too much and lose control, others are satisfactory enough to get your half your money�s worth, and others are so unbearably banausic that riots ought to be caused due to the outcome. Skating makes a healthy man, goaltending a flexible man, and scoring an ecstatic and confident man. Therefore, if a man scores rarely, he need have unshaken faith in himself; if a man tends goal poorly, he need have other on-ice talents; and if he skates scarcely, he need have other ways of keeping fit. Winning hockey games creates devoted fans; tying hockey games creates hopeful fans; and losing hockey games creates angry, frustrated fans. There is no racial gap that cannot be bridged by hockey. If countries are at war, hold international tournaments to bring them together. If people are being discriminated, form multicultural teams and draft players of different ethnicities. And if the people are divided, hold an exhibition game to unite hockey-lovers alike. And thus shall all gaps in society be bridged by the game of hockey.

(Parody fo Sir Francis Bacon's "On Essays")